"Countess!" he exclaimed, "do not carry your scorn of me too far. I am sunk low enough, it is true, since I thus chaffer and bargain with you to sell you my assistance for a single kiss. For this single caress I would resign my life! The thought of you is the madness that robs me of sleep at night, makes me hesitate and stammer when I stand before my pupils in the lecture-room, and prevents me from enjoying the food that I eat. A single kiss from you is more bliss than such a wretched man as I should hope to enjoy. But I am not yet sunk so low as to hire myself out for money, and although you may hold me in contempt, you shall at least pay some respect to the position of German professor, which I have the honour to hold!" The countess was silent for awhile, struck by his words. But such embarrassment could last but a moment with a woman conscious of the power to atone by a smile for the grossest insult. "Come here! Forgive me! I have erred, but I repent." "Oh, light of my life!" cried Herbert, seizing her offered hand, and pressing it to his breast. "Forgive--forgive you? With what unnumbered pains would I not purchase the joy of such a request! The only thing I cannot forgive you is that such a woman as you should love this Möllner." "Indeed!--and why?" "Because he is not worthy of you. Look you,--were you to give yourself to an emperor or a king, I could bear it without a murmur. Crowned heads are entitled to the costliest of earth's treasures,--how could I covet what kings alone could win? But that one of my own class should call you his,--one with no special claim of birth, culture, or intellect,--with nothing that I too do not myself possess, except a physique that is his in common with any prize-fighter,--the thought is madness!" A dark flush coloured the beautiful woman's brow. "I have not even acknowledged to myself why I love this Möllner. I never hold myself responsible for my impulses--every passion bears its divine credentials in itself. But you have just revealed to me what so enraptures me in this Möllner. Yes! it is nothing else than what we admire as the highest attribute of humanity--a noble, genuine manhood. I think I have read in some poet, 'Take him for all in all, he was a man!' But this man is more; he is what I have never in my life seen before,--a virtuous man. This, my good little professor, is his charm, his advantage over monarchs even,--enabling him to buy what is his now and forever,--my heart! Oh, there can be no more exquisite flower in the garden of Paradise than this which I hope to pluck--the devotion of this virtuous man. It is the bliss of Eve when she breathed the first kiss upon the lips of the first man and marked his first blush!" The beautiful woman, speaking more to herself than to the miserable man by her side, leaned back upon her lounge and exclaimed with a heavy sigh, "Oh, what a divine office for a woman--to teach a man like this to love!"